Walmart

Walmart is seeking 95 new full-time and part-time employees for its new Neighborhood Market at Palmer Crossing Shopping Center.

A temporary hiring station has been set up 5549 Palmer Crossing Circle, and applications will be accepted Monday-Friday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturdays 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Employees are expected to begin working this month to help the store prepare for its grand opening early next year.

Walmart opened its first Neighborhood Market grocery in Sarasota County in 2012, on U.S. 41 in a space formerly occupied by a Winn-Dixie.

These stores are typically about 40,000-square-feet, about a quarter of the size of the chain’s traditional superstores. The smaller, grocery-like stores are known for their shorter lines, less crowded aisles and shorter walks from the parking lot.

Sarasota has two Neighborhood Markets, at 3500 N. Tamiami Trail and 3560 Bee Ridge Road, They also have been added in south Manatee County, Port Charlotte and North Port.

The 46,195-square-foot proposed store would require a small vacant tenant space be demolished at the southwest corner of the plaza.

Tenants in the plaza now include a BP gas station with a Jimmy Johns attached, Chick-fil-A, a Quiznos and an Applebee’s.

The retail giant’s neighborhood market formats are smaller than traditional Walmarts and offer food and pharmacy and a beauty departments similar to other supermarket chains like Publix and Winn-Dixie.

Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market formats were rolled out nationwide in 1998 as a smaller-footprint grocery option. The average store size is 38,000 square feet and they employ around 95 people. The chain operates more than 500 neighborhood markets nationwide.

Wal-Mart opened two neighborhood market stores in Southwest Florida recently.

A 21,000-square-foot grocery store debuted at the corner on Beneva and Bee Ridge roads in November.

In September 2012, Walmart opened its first neighborhood market grocery in Sarasota County on U.S. 41 in the space once occupied by a Winn-Dixie. The residential area south of Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport had gone years without a grocery store.

For more shopping news in Southwest Florida, follow reporter Justine Griffin on Twitter and Facebook or email her at justine.griffin@heraldtribune.com. Read What’s In Store in print on Tuesdays.

Sarasota County’s second Walmart Neighborhood Market will open to the public on Wednesday, Nov. 19.

The store was built on a four-acre parcel where the Rivers Edge Community Church once sat at the intersection of Beneva and Bee Ridge roads. The church sold the property for $4.6 million to a trust for developer Jebco Ventures Inc.

The 41,000-sqaure-foot grocery store will sit at the southwest corner of the intersection, across the street from a retail plaza that houses a Publix and a nearby Walgreens.

The neighborhood market formats are smaller than traditional Walmarts and offer food, pharmacy and beauty departments similar to other supermarket chains like Publix and Winn-Dixie.

With more than 20 stores in the region, including the new neighborhood market, Walmart has been investing in the area by remodeling supercenters over the last year and filling the areas between them with the company’s smaller grocery format.

In September 2012, Walmart opened its first neighborhood market grocery in Sarasota County on U.S. 41 in the space once occupied by a Winn-Dixie. The residential area south of Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport had gone years without a grocery store.

For more shopping news in Southwest Florida, follow reporter Justine Griffin on Twitter and Facebook or email her at justine.griffin@heraldtribune.com. Read What’s In Store in print on Tuesday

PDQ, a fast food chain known for its chicken tenders, salads and sandwiches, will open its second Southwest Florida store off State Road 70 in Bradenton on Sunday, Sept. 21.

The restaurant, 5484 Lena Road, across from the Walmart Supercenter and Texas Roadhouse restaurant, opened its first store in Tampa in 2011. It now has more than 31 in Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia and Texas, including one on Tamiami Trail in Sarasota. The chain plans to open three more stores in 2014 across Florida and Texas.

PDQ, which stands for “People Dedicated to Quality,” also serves fresh-cut fries and hand-spun milkshakes and malts. The restaurant will hold a grand opening celebration beginning at 10:30 a.m. Sunday.

The company purchased property in Manatee County near Interstate 75 at State Road 70 in July 2013.

For more shopping news in Southwest Florida, follow reporter Justine Griffin on Twitter and Facebook or email her at justine.griffin@heraldtribune.com. Read What’s In Store in print on Tuesdays.

Walmart is getting a jump start on holiday shopping promotions this year.

The retailer will kick off its free layaway program beginning Sept. 12, with an expanded list of eligible products including toys, entertainment items and sporting goods.

Customers can take advantage several chains with layaway programs, like Walmart, Kmart, Burlington Coat Factory and others, during the holiday season. Layaway allow shoppers to make incremental payments for seasonal purchases without putting a strain on their credit.

Walmart revamped its layaway program in 2011. The company had stopped offering the service in 2006. Based on the success of the relaunch of the program, Walmart pushed its layaway opening into September in 2012.

Layaway is available to shoppes from Sept. 15 to Dec. 15 this year. Certain stores offer layaway year round or on jewelry purchases only.

To qualify for layaway, individual items must be $15 or greater and total purchases must be more than $50. Customers must make their final payment and pick up the merchandise on or before Dec. 15 at the same store. Accounts can be canceled and items will be returned to regular inventory. Down payments and regular payments may be refunded but shoppers will be charged a $10 cancellation fee.

Layaway is restricted to certain items in store, like electronics, toys, small appliances, some sporting goods and jewelry. Layaway is not available on Black Friday, Nov. 28.

AP Photo/Elise Amendola

For more shopping news in Southwest Florida, follow reporter Justine Griffin on Twitter and Facebook or email her at justine.griffin@heraldtribune.com. Read What’s In Store in print on Tuesdays.

Walmart is looking to hire 95 people in the Sarasota area to work at the new Walmart Neighborhood Market, which is slated to open at Beneva and Bee Ridge roads this fall.

Full-time and part-time work options are available. Interested applicants can visit Walmart’s temporary hiring center at 4013 Clark Road in Sarasota. Applications are accepted Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday from 8 a.m. to noon. Or apply online here.

“I began as an hourly associate and worked my way up with Walmart,” said store manager, Eric Fenton. “I look forward to meeting other potential associates who are looking for great opportunities with a great company.”

Work will begin in September before the store opens to the public.

Construction began this spring in the wake of the Rivers Edge Community Church’s recent sale of its four-acre site, for $4.6 million, to a trust for developer Jebco Ventures Inc.

The Walmart site is just west of Village Plaza, where Publix Super Markets opened a refurbished grocery store more than two years ago.

This will be the retailer’s second local Neighborhood Market store, following the September 2012 opening of the first on north U.S. 41, on the site of a former Winn-Dixie supermarket.

Photo by Justine Griffin

For more shopping news in Southwest Florida, follow reporter Justine Griffin on Twitter and Facebook or email her at justine.griffin@heraldtribune.com. Read What’s In Store in print on Tuesdays.

A longtime restaurant in Sarasota, known for its lunchtime specials of salads and sandwiches, has closed its doors for good.

Levoie’s Salads & Sandwiches located at 2241 Ringling Boulevard, has closed. It is unclear at this time why the restaurant has closed, but nearby business owners say the owners have sold the business. Calls to the owners were not returned.

The restaurant often attracted a crowd from the nearby courthouse for lunch.

Melva Hipps and her husband, owners of Levoie’s, had been supporters of the proposed Walmart Supercenter on Ringling Boulevard. “Anything is better than the empty plaza we have over there now,” Hipps said in an interview with the Herald-Tribune in February.

Photo by Mike Lang, Herald-Tribune staff.

For more shopping news in Southwest Florida, follow reporter Justine Griffin on Twitter and Facebook or email her at justine.griffin@heraldtribune.com. Read What’s In Store in print on Tuesdays.

In February, Sweetbay closed 33 stores, or 30 percent of its locations in Florida, which included four in Sarasota and Manatee counties. There are 10 Sweetbay stores that are still open in Southwest Florida.

It’s no question that Sweetbay has struggled in recent years to compete with Publix, which dominates the grocery scene in Florida. The Lakeland-based chain has expanded into new markets this year too, like Tennessee and North Carolina. Walmart has also aggressively opened more supercenter and neighborhood markets in Florida recent years.

Even after a multimillion-dollar renovation nearly a decade ago, Sweetbay Supermarkets fought to keep customers who complained about poor quality and high prices. This year the company tried investing in “green” ventures to attract customers, by selling seafood only from sustainable fisheries and eco-friendly flower bouquets around Mother’s Day.

Sweetbay began as a conversion of the former Kash N’ Karry in 2004.

Bi-Lo Holdings is ranked as the country’s fastest growing retailer for 2013 by Stores, a publication put out by the National Retail Federation.

Photo by Chip Litherland, Herald-Tribune staff.

For more shopping news in Southwest Florida, follow reporter Justine Griffin on Twitter and Facebook or email her at justine.griffin@heraldtribune.com. Read What’s In Store in print on Tuesdays.